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November 19, 2007

Take the pledge (but drink all the beer you want)!

This is a guest post by Jenna Garland, who works with Corporate Accountability on their Think Outside the Bottle Campaign. Jenna wants us all to sign a pledge to stick with drinking tap water instead of bottled. Here, she tells us why:

The Think Outside the Bottle campaign
is asking people to pledge to opt for tap water over bottled, and to
support the efforts of local officials who are working for stronger
public water systems. We are asking people to sign because:

water is a human right and not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit;

bottled
water corporations are changing the very way we think about water and
undermining people’s confidence in public water systems;

up to 40% of bottled water in the US and Canada is sourced from municipal tap water;

some
bottlers have run over communities’ concerns and the environment when
they extract water and build bottling plants to get local spring and
ground water;

bottled
water travels many miles from the source, results in the burning of
massive amounts of fossil fuels, and contributes to the billions of
plastic bottles ending up in our landfills;

worldwide
there is a need for investments in public water systems to ensure equal
access to water, a key ingredient for prosperity and health for all
people; and

solutions
to ensuring water as a fundamental human right require people acting
together and standing up for public water systems.

Last year in the US, 17 million barrels of oil were used to
manufacture, fill, and transport bottled water. That’s enough to fuel 1
million cars for 1 year (in the US). This is a significant source of
global warming pollution – furthermore, it’s becoming a have and have
not issue.

As water resources shift with global climate change, water
is going to become an even more precious resource than it is currently.
Right now, we have more than 1.1 billion (with a b!) people who lack
access to enough clean, safe water to meet their daily needs.

By 2025,
that’s predicted to increase to more than 2/3 of the world’s
population, without
taking into account the effects of global climate change. We can’t let
this become something that those who can pay for get access to, and
those who can’t are left without options. Working for stronger public
systems is essential to preventing all these things from happening.

To sign the pledge to stick with tap water and show corporations and public officials that you value it, click here.

----------

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Take the pledge (but drink all the beer you want)!

This is a guest post by Jenna Garland, who works with Corporate Accountability on their Think Outside the Bottle Campaign. Jenna wants us all to sign a pledge to stick with drinking tap water instead of bottled. Here, she tells us why:

The Think Outside the Bottle campaign
is asking people to pledge to opt for tap water over bottled, and to
support the efforts of local officials who are working for stronger
public water systems. We are asking people to sign because:

water is a human right and not a commodity to be bought and sold for profit;

bottled
water corporations are changing the very way we think about water and
undermining people’s confidence in public water systems;

up to 40% of bottled water in the US and Canada is sourced from municipal tap water;

some
bottlers have run over communities’ concerns and the environment when
they extract water and build bottling plants to get local spring and
ground water;

bottled
water travels many miles from the source, results in the burning of
massive amounts of fossil fuels, and contributes to the billions of
plastic bottles ending up in our landfills;

worldwide
there is a need for investments in public water systems to ensure equal
access to water, a key ingredient for prosperity and health for all
people; and

solutions
to ensuring water as a fundamental human right require people acting
together and standing up for public water systems.

Last year in the US, 17 million barrels of oil were used to
manufacture, fill, and transport bottled water. That’s enough to fuel 1
million cars for 1 year (in the US). This is a significant source of
global warming pollution – furthermore, it’s becoming a have and have
not issue.

As water resources shift with global climate change, water
is going to become an even more precious resource than it is currently.
Right now, we have more than 1.1 billion (with a b!) people who lack
access to enough clean, safe water to meet their daily needs.

By 2025,
that’s predicted to increase to more than 2/3 of the world’s
population, without
taking into account the effects of global climate change. We can’t let
this become something that those who can pay for get access to, and
those who can’t are left without options. Working for stronger public
systems is essential to preventing all these things from happening.

To sign the pledge to stick with tap water and show corporations and public officials that you value it, click here.